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New subs to replace Collins Class fleet

Collins Class replacement: It's estimated it could cost more than $36 billion.

www.defence.gov.au

The Government has announced plans to replace the much-maligned fleet of Collins Class submarines.

It is the biggest defence procurement project Australia has ever seen and even before any contracts have been drawn up, the Government concedes it faces huge challenges.

The fleet will be replaced with 12 new submarines and the Opposition wonders if the plan is realistic, given the Navy currently has trouble keeping more than two Collins Class submarines in the water at a time.

The Minister for Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science, Greg Combet, is under no illusions about just how complicated a submarine can be.

"For example, each Collins Class sub has over 3,800,000 parts to it, 75 kilometres of cable," he said.

And therein lies the difficulty, such sophisticated machinery is hugely expensive, difficult to crew, and equally difficult to maintain.

Mr Combet has told the Sydney Institute he is aware the proposal for 12 new subs will be a big ask.

"The future submarine project is itself, perhaps I think, fair to say, at the margins of our present scientific and technological capacity," he said.

"This project, the development of the next generation submarines for the Australian Defence Force for the Navy, will require every bit of scientific, technological and industrial capacity that this country can muster."

But he says the Collins Class subs are worth all the headaches, and their proposed replacements will be essential to Australia's defence.

"Put simply, we need to be able to take warfare to an adversary's front door and submarines are a very important mechanism to achieve that," he said.

The Opposition wonders if the proposal is overly ambitious and says the Government is yet to justify doubling the current fleet.

Defence materiel spokesman Bob Baldwin says if the Navy can currently only put two submarines to sea at a time, then there must be serious questions about its ability to maintain 12.

"If we can't as a nation establish and maintain more than two submarines at any one time what's going to occur is this Government will go on an expensive folly where we have submarines tied up at the dock and very few put to sea," he said.

Sean Costello, a former Collins Class Officer, a defence consultant and co-author of a recent report on the new submarines by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, agrees a lot needs to change if the submarines are to be delivered.

"Our Navy is presently dissatisfied with the level of availability of submarines and that's having all sorts of flow-throughs for our Navy people and our ability to keep our submarines at the front of their operational capability," he said.

"So we shouldn't think that we are the world's best at this, we have some serious shortfalls. At least we recognise we have those shortfalls and it looks like the Government's starting to take some moves to remediate those."

The report he recently authored estimates that the new submarines could cost more than $36 billion but Mr Costello says if it is done right, it will be worth the hefty price tag.

"In exchange for a large contract, a significant capability would be returned," he said.

"A capability that would see our Navy be able to contribute to national strategy right through to the year 2050 or thereabouts. So the numbers are large, as is the return on the investment."